The one band Phil Collins said should never reform: “It would be a serious mistake”
It’s safe to say that Phil Collins has given everyone more than their fair share of catchy tunes throughout his lifetime.
Not everyone might have been a fan of every single thing that he ever played, but it’s hard to get that many generations singing along to your music without ever sacrificing the quality along the way. There are plenty of songs in his catalogue that aren’t necessarily the greatest thing in the world, but Collins knew that it was better for him to call his career when he did then try to keep pushing himself beyond his comfort zone all of the time.
You have to remember that it’s a lot of physical weight for someone to be a drummer and a singer at the same time, and Collins has indeed suffered for his art more than a few times. His drumming is still one of the foundations of what classic prog was built on, but there were also more than a few times where he didn’t exactly have the same kind of strength that he did when he tried to capture that same energy in his older age.
And when looking at his recording career, it’s not like Collins could really ask for more, either. He has some of the greatest pop songs of his generation to his name, Genesis has remained one of the finest progressive rock acts to ever come together, and his work on Tarzan has pretty much guaranteed that he never needs to work another day in his life if he doesn’t want to. He crossed over every milestone anyone could want, and he wasn’t about to go down the nostalgia route that often.
There were plenty of opportunities for Genesis to get back together, but given Collins’s health, it made much more sense for him to stay home and live the rest of his life in peace. Besides, there was nothing that could be gained out of playing the same songs that he did back in the day over and over again, and he didn’t want to suddenly watch some of his idols go down that same road when they got a bit of that twinkle in their eye.
He had already seen the ugliness that can come of that when working with the reformed Led Zeppelin, and when Cream got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the door was wide open for Eric Clapton to go back to his old band. But given how much time he had spent honing his craft as a solo artist, Collins was a lot more pleased when he saw one of his heroes take his own path rather than try to play ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ and pretend that everything was exactly as it was in 1967.
‘Slowhand’ could do whatever he wanted, but Collins was much happier to see him finding his own voice than falling back on old habits, saying, “He’s getting a lot of pressure from Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, but I know he won’t do it. Don’t let me down, Eric! It would be a serious mistake. Sometimes you just don’t want to f**k around with the memories.” And it’s not like their eventually reunion didn’t have its fair share of hiccups.
It was nice to see the band close the door on their legacy with some grace, but even after nearly four decades, a lot of those old resentments were still there. Everything hit the fan when they went to the US and Bruce and Baker got up to their usual infighting, but even if they made it through the set bravely enough, there’s a good reason why Clapton stayed away all the way up until Bruce and Baker’s deaths.
There’s no doubt he still has a fondness for that style of music, but Collins probably gave him the right advice about not succumbing to the same songs over and over again. After all, Clapton was a bluesman, and one of the staples of any great blues musician is being able to travel on and make music that’s even better than what they did in the past.
